Raymond Van Barneveld

“Barney” as he is affectionately known, first came to the attention of the British public at the Lakeside in 1991 in the World Championship, but it was not until 1998 that he really started to make his mark in Britain by winning the title. Since then he has not looked back on a career that has been phenomenal in its success.

Barney has won many major titles and in 2006 after winning his fourth B.D.O. World Title the year before  he hoped to equal Bristow’s early feat of winning a world championship title five times, but he did not make it until 2007, as he lost to fellow Dutchman Jelle Klaassen. He has had many major wins since the 1990’s throughout Europe in Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark and of course his home country of Holland. In 2003 during the Swiss Open Barney hit the ultimate 9 dart game and he did it again on television in March 2006.

Barneveld was born on April 20^th 1967 in The Hague in the Netherlands and has been playing darts since 1984. For 15 years he competed in the B.D.O. and then joined the P.D.C. in February 2006 because he wanted “a greater challenge” and he “wanted to play the likes of Phil Taylor.” He has had his wish granted several times now and in the UK open last year (2006) he beat Phil Taylor in the quarter finals. Then a few weeks later he beat him again in the semi finals of the Las Vegas Desert Classic. Incredibly he also beat Taylor again in 2007 in the P.D.C. World Championship after a grueling final. Barneveld has also lost several games though to Taylor, but the fact remains that Barney is one of the few players to beat the legendary Phil Taylor and he is sure to go down in the history books as the greatest Dutch player ever and the greatest Non British player in the history of the game.